Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman

The story of Stephen Kelman‘s debut novel Pigeon English is the unlikeliest of fairytales. Not, however, for its protagonist, Harri Opoku, an 11-year-old Ghanaian immigrant caught up in gang warfare on a south London estate, but for its author. After being discovered on a literary agency’s slush pile, Kelman’s manuscript sparked a bidding war between 12 UK publishers and was finally secured by Bloomsbury in January 2010 for what his agents described as a “high six-figure sum”. Read more in the Guardian review.